On the cusp of the raining season

As I write, George (our electrician and general handyman) and Larry are working, for the second day in a row, on trying to install our propane gas logs in the fireplace. I should have known that it would be a trial inasmuch as just getting the logs here was a colossal headache. Unheard of in Panama, they had to be ordered from the States and shipped, at great expense. I got a lead from a friend on a cheaper way of shipping very heavy items than Mailboxes, Etc., so I gave them a try. Aerocasillas by name. Three weeks, they told me.

After six weeks, I got an email from Aerocasillas in Panama City. They needed an invoice for customs purposes, so I emailed the invoice that had been emailed to me by the log company. After a couple of days, Aerocasillas emailed again asking for a description of the item (although it clearly stated what they were on the invoice). I replied in both Spanish and English. Two days later, they asked for a picture. I dutifully got a picture from the company's website and sent it on. Then they wanted to know if the logs were wood. I patiently explained that they were artificial logs, that the fire comes from the propane. Hearing nothing further for a couple of days, I wrote and asked if they had everything they needed. "Yes," Sra. Lorena Campos replied, "but you have another package on the way. If you provide me the invoice now, it will speed things up." I responded that I wasn't expecting another package.

Finally, the package arrived at the Aerocasillas office in Boquete. Larry and I took one look at it and knew something was amiss. Opening it, we discovered only the iron grate: no logs. I wisely refused to take it until the entire order was fulfilled, realizing what the second package must be. I went home and wrote Sra. Campos, explaining that the second package had to be the logs. She wrote back that she needed another invoice for the second package. I explained that the same invoice applied to both packages, that it was one order in two shipments. That wouldn't do. Customs has to have discrete paperwork for every shipment in order to assess customs duties. After several days of back and forth wrangling by phone and email, the local rep put me in touch with a customer service representative (as though such a person exists in Panama) in David. The best she could do after a week of back and forth was putting a minimal value on the second package so that I wouldn't have to pay twice the customs--a considerable figure. So, after three months and more money than I want to think of the logs are here. Now the installation.

Our peace and tranquility here in Palo Alto was disturbed for a couple of weeks when the house next door was habituated by Dr. Dan Evers, one of the part-time gringo vets who is a friend of the house's owners. Dan and his wife Cindy arrived to close on the sale of their house in a gated community outside of town and to look for housing closer to Boquete to better serve the animals. After spending the first two days of their visit moving their stuff from the sold house into the house next door, the house sale fell through at the last moment. Then Cindy had to return to Florida after four days because of her mother's hospitalization. Dan had promised to do a mini-sterilization clinic while here, but otherwise, he said, had not announced his arrival. It is a testament to the Boquete grapevine that he had patients coming and going from 8 in the morning until after dark every day. Of course it was a great source of amusement for Chyna and Trudy, who had a bird's eye view of the garage/clinic from the low stone wall in back which overlooks that side of the neighbors' house. With Cindy gone and Dan smothered in vet business, we pretty much had to take care of him for a couple of weeks--including breaking into the house in the middle of the night when, as he was in the garage cleaning up after a day of vetting, the wind blew the door closed with his keys inside. We got free vet services, however, and a year's supply of worm pills.

We took a road trip a couple of weeks ago with Doc, Charly, and Ramon to Las Lajas Beach, about an hour outside of David towards Panama City. They kept saying how pleasant it was, but they're not from Florida and wouldn't know a nice beach if they saw one. The sand is gray, it was hot has hell, and various stray dogs fought under our feet all day. While it was nice to get away, I was glad to get home to the cool mountain air.

Otherwise, all we've been doing is working in the yard. We went through three weeks of extremely dry weather when we were watering all the time. Then we had a BIG rain last week (it tore the gutters off the house next door) and suddenly everything is growing like mad, including the weeds. Amazing. We've gotten late afternoon rain ever since, just the right amount, so everything is flourishing. Juvenal is outside weedeating at present, and we have a second gardener, Edwin, who works on Saturday. Lots to do.

Rain (and lack thereof)

It's a quiet Tuesday. Larry's playing golf, and there are no workmen for the first time in months. The front landscaping is in place, so we decided to give Steve and company, as well as our pocketbook, a rest before starting on the waterfall and walkways out back. There are scores of plants out back, however, in addition to those out front, that up until a few days ago we wore ourselves out watering. After the wettest of wet seasons, we suddenly were hit with no rain and lots of wind for about a week and a half, drying everything out virtually overnight. We have four inter-connected tanks that catch rainwater from the downspouts, a pump to pump it out, and water lines and four faucets on the back part of the property. We emptied the tanks in two days of constant water dispersal via sprinklers and hoses. Out front, we used house water, and lots of it. Finally, three days ago we starting receiving late afternoon and early evening showers, saturating everything thoroughly and refilling the tanks. It's still windy, but nothing like that few days in January. With the sun and moderate rain, things are really beginning to grow.

There continue to be aggravations, compounded by the general inefficiency of Panamanian businesses and government. It took us five days "will-be-there-today" to get our automatic gate working properly. I've been waiting for two days for a plumber to unclog a water line to the kitchen so that I have more than a trickle of water to the sink. And I just got a call from C & W (Cable and Wireless--aka Clueless and Witless or Corrupt and Worthless) telling me my phone bill hasn't been paid even though I set it up for automatic charge to a credit card of which they have copies. Naturally, they can't look up their own records but insist that I visit their office to straighten it out. The house papers still haven't been properly filed with the Public Registry because of a dispute about the value of house--despite two bank appraisals and an appraisal by the Town. Garbage collection is regular unless there's a holiday, and there are many, in which case it throws them off completely and we don't have a pick up for weeks. Finally, we've been waiting an eternity for some patio furniture and a couple of indoor tables which were ordered in mid-December and partially paid for. Oscar, the craftsman, who made our gates in record time and therefore won our confidence, apparently is still is town because there are reported sightings of him, but we can't run him down to save our lives.

If I get one major thing accomplished a day, I feel good. Today it was renewing my health insurance. Yesterday it was getting the gate fixed. Sunday it was doing income taxes. And so on. In between, there's always watering, weeding, and household chores. It hasn't left much time for recreation, but I did get away last Thursday with Jane (of The Coffee Estate Inn where we always stayed when we came down as tourists) and Kay Wade for a girls-only road trip to Concepcion, Volcan, and Cerro Punto. We swore we would do it more often, but it was Jane's first day off in months. They've had a full house since November and, in addition to serving as innkeepers and all-around problem solvers for picky guests (you should hear her stories), they also offer gourmet meals at night. And Kay and her husband Dan were leaving for Bhutan on a bird-watching jaunt the following weekend. So when we'll get together again I don't know. Doc, Charly, and Ramon are just as busy settling into their house and landscaping the property, although we do see from time to time for a dinner out or a quick visit.

One day I hope to be retired.

The latest from planet paradise

So much for writing more often. The weather has been great, so it's hard to stay indoors. Plus, I made the mistake of telling Doc that I type over a hundred words a minute, so he unloaded pages and pages of his writings that were lost during a computer crash. I've been working my way through his short story, a P.G. Wodehouse tale featuring Bertie and Jeeves, entitled "The Case of the Missing Mashie." My favorite line so far is his description of golf as "a not unplesant way to while away an afternoon and rid yourself of unnecessary self-esteem, simultaneously."

I realize that it's risky to feature a picture of a monkey in a blog bearing one's name, but several readers have expressed a desire to see the infamous Yahoo, so here she is. She will be relocating soon to Steve and Michelle's property in Chorcha where Cesar, since he finished our wall, is constructing a monkey house. It's probably time because she's really been obstreperous of late; I had a devil of a time getting her picture, as you probably can tell by Michelle's disarray. Shortly after the photo shoot she managed to free herself of Michelle and scampered to the top of the wall, where Steve was busy inserting plants between rocks. It took me, Larry, Steve, Michelle, Gareth, and Rebeca to finally recapture her, accompanied by screeching from her and baying from Trudy.

The highlight of the past week was a trip to Volcan with Doc, Charly, Ramon, and their friends Sam and Judy Sacco. We lunched at a new Thai restaurant there, and, although Thai has never been a favorite food of mine, this meal was spectacular. We ordered five dishes between the six of us (Larry stayed home to oversee some work that was being done) and ate every morsel even though the portions were herculean. Afterwards, Paul, the chef/proprietor, gave us a tour of his garden/greenhouses filled with carnivorous plants. There was every variety of pitcher plant, sundew, Venus fly trap, and nepenthes (look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls--or, better yet, google it for some really weird pictures) known to man. Paul, who hails from Hollywood, California and is covered in tattoos, also advised that he has a side business in that ancient art should we be inclined to memoralize the day with some body decoration. All that said, he seemed like a regular guy.

Time

The best thing about retirement is having control over how you spend your time, not necessarily having more time. In fact, I haven't the time to do a fraction of the things I want to, even though I arise at 5:00 a.m. most days. Even though I know it's foolish to plan anything down here, because plans inevitably go awry, I nevertheless decided earlier this week that I simply had to start setting some priorities. I came up with three principal ones.

Sitting on the terrace in the early morning and late afternoon watching the birds when they are the most active is a must. Every morning flocks of white egrets pass through the back yard on their way, presumably, to the cow pastures further up the road. While they're soaring overhead, dozens of sparrows hop about in the grass or on the terrace searching for bugs, and the songbirds dive and swoop about. We also have some large, black grackles that largely stay high in the trees or on the roof, making enough noise to, as they say, raise the dead. Occasionally, flocks of parrots come by; you can hear them screeching long before you see them, which is a nice warning of their arrival. As flowers are beginning to bloom, more and more hummingbirds are about. There are dozens of species of hummingbirds in Panama, ranging from the teeny tiny to the ones I saw in Cerro Punta that were about four inches long (and irridescent). Interestingly, they perch a lot here--on branches and fences--so I hope to get some pictures sooner or later.

Learning how to speak Spanish more fluently is my second priority. To that end, I've committed to studying at least an hour a day, more if possible, i.e., if the weather is bad and I can't be gardening.

But gardening is certainly the top priority. Now that a lot of the basic plant areas are in, I spend hours potting, planting, weeding, digging rocks out of the ground, tying orchids to trees, fertilizing, propogating (plants), mulching, etc., etc. We're a ways from having the botanical garden that Steve envisions, but I do have a few blooms here and there, including a few orchids. I think it's going to pay off handsomely.

Catch-up and creation of blogsite

The weather has been beautiful for two weeks, so I've spent virtually every waking moment outdoors. It's raining today, so I'm taking the opportunity to stay indoors and get current technologically. So here goes my first Blog.

The big news is that the Great Wall of Palo Alto, as Doc calls it, was finally completed about 4:00 Friday afternoon. Cesar has been working on it, you will recall, since late August. There are two gaps where one of the sections is set back in order that it not appear to be a fortress; they will be inset with iron bars matching the driveway and pedestrian gates. Two pictures included.

I keep forgetting to mention that, for reasons I can't understand, I've dropped a lot of weight in the year that we've been here. I'm down to a size 10, approaching a size 8. None of the clothes I brought with me fit. I ordered several pairs of size 10 khakis and have been living in them. I don't know what I'll do if I ever have to dress up. And I have a closet filled with things that I can't wear.

It's coffee picking season, so we are entertained from sunup to sundown with the yodellings and chirrups of the coffee workers surrounding us. They have a unique form of communication understood only by them, but it manages to keep the dogs' ears perked up all day. They, the dogs, are becoming accustomed to lots of new people and new sounds, so only certain things now send them into barking frenzies. Noisy vehicles on the road always get a rise out of them, as do horses and cows traveling out front. They're blase now about the workers, unless, of course, one is so inconsiderate as to knock on the door or ring the doorbell.

I made my first trip to the vet on Friday morning. Chyna had been getting up at night for two days to go outdoors and had been drinking an inordinate amount of water. We arrived at Dr. Chely Castillo's at 9:30, made our way perilously through her menagerie of rescued animals, and were ushered into the clinic. Before even beginning an examination or asking me any questions, Sra. Chely launched into an extended critique of Chyna's weight, complete with wagging finger. Upon hearing of Chyna's symptoms and finding that she had a fever, she assumed, as had I, that a urinary tract infection was the most likely diagnosis, but she insisted on a blood test to make sure. Blood was withdrawn and an antibiotic injection given, and she advised me to return at 2:00 for the results. She then gave big old bulldog Chyna a big kiss on the lips and sent us on our way. Following a quick trip to David to buy groceries, I returned to learn that the blood tests indicated an infection of the liver rather than the kidneys. Sra. Chely explained that it most likely was due to her being overweight, and she explained in great detail, in Spanish, why it was imperative that Chyna not only lose weight but also go on a special diet. The new regimen requires a special treatment dog food by Science Diet that costs $2.25 a can and $23.50 per medium-sized bag. After paying the vet, the lab, and the dog food store, I limped home about $125 poorer. It's clear that Sra. Chely charges gringos more than she charges locals, but I suppose that's to be expected. There was a young boy at the clinic with his sick puppy on Friday and it was clear that he had little if any money. Nonetheless, Sra. Chely took care of the puppy and sent them away with additional medicine. She's also the principal vet at the many spay and neuter clinics held in the area and lauded my participation in them. As is typical of Panamanians, she hugged me when I left.

Further on the subject of dogs, we nearly acquired another one. A beautiful husky, with one blue eye and one brown, took up at Doc and Charly and Ramon's house. He had been there a couple of days when he decided to accompany Larry back here after he visit. He decided he liked it better here, followed Larry around everywhere outdoors, and cried at the front door. We finally let him in, Chyna didn't engage him battle, and a peaceful night was passed with him lying next to the bed. Larry named him Loco Lobo. The following day, however, he began making some subtle noises suggesting that he desired to be the alpha, and we noticed Chyna's hackles rising ever so slightly. We began looking around for alternative living arrangements for him (after having received no responses to our DOG FOUND pleas on the Boquete internet forum), and received a welcome call from Demaris saying that Juvenal wanted him as a companero. He was promptly delivered to Juvenal's casita, where he apparently will live happily ever after.

During the time that Derek and Jill were here, Steve and family were forced once again to leave the country for three days in order to renew their visas upon reentry. They made it a mini-vacation in Costa Rica but met with misfortune. While out for dinner one night, their bungalow was broken into and various items stolen, including Steve's camera full of pictures and Gareth's iPod full of music. They were very perturbed and have sworn off Costa Rica because of the crime rate there. The door of the bungalow actually was broken down, and the police told them that the only surefire protection was to always have someone in residence. Inasmuch as that would defeat the purpose of a family outing, they're looking into going elsewhere in the future. Since their return, Steve ordered a new camera which he had shipped to Dan and Kay Wade in Texas, who brought it with them upon their return to Boquete after the holidays.

Having left all of our family in the States, we have acquired a new one here: Demaris' clan. I forgot to write that the entire household came over on Christmas Eve, dressed to the teeth, and spent a couple of hours with us, Doc, Charly, Ramon, and Ramon's daughter Laura who was visiting from San Francisco. Doc remarked later that having had them come by, particularly with 5-year-old Jose so full of Christmas, made it seem so much more like the holidays. Yesterday, Demaris and Juvenal came over to cook, accompanied by Demaris' mother Maria, her sister Iris, her brother Angel, her brother Jaime, and, of course, Jose. (Brothers Eric and Alberto were away for work purposes.) They arrived at 1:00 and left at 7:30. Demaris, Maria, and Iris cooked up a typical Panamanian meal of beef with red peppers, garlic, and onions (producing a super gravy); rice and guandu (the local pea); and plantains baked with butter, cinnamon, and strawberry soda. We found a t.v. program airing a salsa band and dancers from Miami, much to everyone's delight. Jose danced, played with the dogs, and showed us his attempts at learning how to break dance like one of his cousins. A good time was had by all, as they say.

Demaris and Juvenal are back here today working, and it's time for me to prepare lunch for all of us. I'll try to be more dutiful with my updates here on the blog, probably writing less but more often. So check back whenever you can.